P&F News 

Save the Date - Sundowner & Dr Craig Challen

At the start of the year we, unfortunately, had to cancel the P&F Sundowner due to Covid restrictions. The P&F has been busily arranging an alternative event to bring the GSG community together. A guest speaker, Dr Craig Challen, will be at school on Thursday 18 August, the day before the mid-term break. A joint winner of the 2019 Australian of Year award, Craig was instrumental in the rescue of 13 people from the flooded cave in Thailand in 2018. 

 

On the day there will be a Sundowner from 5.30pm to 6.30pm in the Pratten Centre with Craig speaking at 6.30pm in the Hall. He will also be speaking with students during the day. Please save the date and more details will be provided soon. Below is a bio of Craig’s achievements. 

 

Craig Challen is an Australian technical diver and cave explorer from Perth, Western Australia. After commencing cave diving in the 1990s he was an early adopter of then rapidly-developing technologies such as closed-circuit mixed gas rebreathers. He has explored caves throughout Australia and New Zealand and around the world including China, Thailand, Vanuatu and the Cook Islands. Craig also has an avid interest in shipwreck diving and has explored sites over the last 15 years in the South China Sea, Solomon Islands, Australia, New Zealand, Mediterranean Sea, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. A veterinary surgeon by profession, he is additionally an enthusiastic helicopter and airplane pilot. In July 2018 Craig participated in the Tham Luang cave rescue of 13 people in Thailand. For his contribution he was awarded the Star of Courage and the Medal of the Order of Australia. He was named as the 2019 Australian of the Year jointly with his long-standing dive partner Richard Harris.